US Import Duties on Goods from China in 2026

The price your supplier quotes is rarely half the story. What decides whether an order from China makes money is the landed cost, and in the United States the largest and least predictable part of that is duty. This page sets out what is actually charged as of 3 August 2026, why the answer is different from what it was in January, and how to find the rate for your own goods.

The date matters more than usual here. The US tariff regime on Chinese goods changed three times in the first seven months of 2026, including once by Supreme Court decision. A large share of the pages currently ranking for this question describe duties that no longer exist.

There is no single rate, and that is the first thing to accept

People ask "what is the tariff on Chinese goods" the way they would ask about a sales tax rate. It does not work like that. Duty is assessed on your specific product, identified by a 10-digit HTS code from the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, and several separate measures can apply to the same code at the same time. They stack: each one is added, none replaces another.

So the honest answer to "what will I pay" is a calculation, not a number. Here is what goes into it.

The layers in force in August 2026

1. The MFN rate. The ordinary duty for your code in the tariff schedule, applied to almost all trading partners. Depending on the product this runs from zero to about 10% or more.

2. Section 301 - the original lists. In place since 2018-2019 following the trade investigation into Chinese practices. Lists 1, 2 and 3 carry 25% and cover industrial machinery, electronics, aerospace, semiconductors, plastics, chemicals, furniture, auto parts and building materials. List 4A carries 7.5% and covers consumer goods, apparel and footwear.

3. Section 301 - the strategic sectors. The four-year review raised specific categories well above the list rates: electric vehicles to 100%, semiconductors and solar cells and modules to 50%, lithium-ion traction batteries and ship-to-shore cranes to 25%, and medical gloves, masks and syringes to between 25% and 50%.

4. Section 301 - forced labour. This one is new and easy to miss. On 23 July 2026 the US Trade Representative announced final action in sixty investigations into countries said to have failed to prohibit and enforce against imports made with forced labour. China falls in the higher tier at 12.5%, effective 12:01 a.m. Eastern on 24 July 2026. Crucially, it applies in addition to the existing Section 301 duties, not instead of them.

5. Section 232. Separate national-security measures on materials rather than origin, and the layer most often miscalculated. Steel, aluminium and copper carry 50% — but assessed on the value of the metal content, not automatically on the whole article. Goods made entirely or almost entirely of those metals pay it on the full value; derivative products substantially made of them pay 25%, and only on the metal portion. Vehicles: 25%. Patented pharmaceuticals and their active ingredients: 100%, from 31 July 2026 for named companies and 29 September 2026 for everyone else, with 20% available to companies holding an approved onshoring plan. These are unaffected by everything described in the next section.

Stacked up, the trade-weighted average on Chinese goods sits in the mid-30s — published estimates ran near 33% before the forced-labour duty and around 35-36% after it. The spread between those figures is itself the lesson: an average is not your rate. A worked example that shows how quickly it compounds: a passenger vehicle carries 2.5% MFN plus 25% Section 301 plus 25% Section 232, for a combined 52.5% before the forced-labour duty is added.

What was removed in 2026, and why chasing an old article will cost you

The IEEPA tariffs are void

On 20 February 2026 the Supreme Court held, by six votes to three, that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give the President authority to impose tariffs at all. The decision covered the so-called fentanyl tariffs on Chinese goods and the reciprocal tariffs, and it treated them as invalid from the moment they were imposed rather than from the date of the ruling.

If you paid IEEPA duties during 2025 or early 2026, that money is refundable, and the machinery to return it already exists. The Court of International Trade ordered the refunds, and CBP built a consolidated process to pay them rather than reopening entries one at a time, settling electronically through ACE and the ACH; by late May 2026 it reported roughly $85 billion refunded, and an accepted claim has been running 60 to 90 days. What remains contested is narrower: whether refunds are owed on entries already liquidated and past the 80-day window in which CBP can reprocess them. The government appealed that point on 2 June 2026, and importers who fall in that group may have to claim through their own action rather than the mass process. Either way the first step is the same - pull your entry summaries and identify exactly what was paid under IEEPA, because the claim is only as good as the entry data behind it.

The ruling reached IEEPA only. Section 301, Section 232 and Section 122 were untouched, which is exactly why the stack above survived intact.

The Section 122 surcharge has expired

Four days after the ruling, on 24 February 2026, a flat 10% global surcharge was imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to replace the lost revenue. Section 122 comes with a hard limit: a balance-of-payments surcharge lapses after 150 days unless Congress votes to extend it. Congress did not, and the surcharge ended on 24 July 2026.

It also faced a legal challenge - the Court of International Trade ruled against it, and that appeal has not concluded. The treatment of amounts already collected is tied to the outcome.

Note the timing, because it explains why importers saw little change in their bills that week: the forced-labour Section 301 duty took effect at the same moment the surcharge fell away. For Chinese goods the net movement was 10% out, 12.5% in - an increase of 2.5 percentage points, not the reduction some had been expecting.

The $800 de minimis exemption is gone

For years, shipments valued under $800 entered the United States free of duty and with minimal formality. That is over, and the change reshapes the economics of small orders more than any single tariff rate.

• 29 August 2025 - the exemption is suspended for every country of origin and every mode of transport.
• 24 June 2026 - CBP issues two interim final rules moving the suspension from executive-order policy into permanent regulation: one for postal shipments, one for every other mode.
• 1 July 2027 - the statutory exemption itself is repealed under legislation passed in July 2025.

In practice: every commercial shipment now requires a formal or informal entry, a 10-digit classification and full payment of duties, regardless of value. Splitting an order into parcels under $800 no longer achieves anything.

For a business importing in commercial quantities this is less a loss than a levelling. Competitors whose pricing depended on de minimis parcels have lost that advantage, while the cost of consolidating a genuine wholesale shipment has not moved.

How to find the rate for your own goods

1. Classify the product. Find the 10-digit HTS code in the schedule published by the US International Trade Commission. This is the step that decides everything downstream, and it is less obvious than it looks for manufactured goods with several possible headings.
2. Read the base rate for that code.
3. Check the Section 301 lists to see whether the code appears, and on which list.
4. Check Section 232 if the product contains steel, aluminium or copper, or is a vehicle or a pharmaceutical.
5. Add the forced-labour Section 301 duty of 12.5% for Chinese origin.
6. Add the fees - merchandise processing and, for ocean freight, harbour maintenance.

If the classification is genuinely ambiguous, a licensed customs broker or a binding ruling from CBP settles it. This is worth paying for: as importer of record the classification is your legal responsibility, and a wrong code discovered later means back duties and potentially penalties.

Who actually pays

Duty is owed by the importer of record. Which party that is depends on your Incoterms, and the choice is worth making deliberately.

Under DDP the seller or forwarder is responsible for the entry and the duties, and the amount is folded into the price you are quoted - you get one figure covering goods, freight and duty. Under DDU or DAP the goods stop at the port and you clear them yourself through your own broker, which gives you more visibility and more paperwork.

Neither is inherently cheaper. What matters is that the duty is quantified before you commit to the order rather than arriving as an invoice after the container has landed.

How we handle it

We ship on DDP terms by default: we classify the goods, calculate the duty for your specific codes, file the entry and settle the duties and fees, and state the whole figure in your quote before you order. If you would rather use your own customs broker, we deliver to the port or airport and hand over the document set.

What we do not do is quote you a percentage before we know what you are shipping. Anyone who does is either guessing or describing somebody else's goods. See freight forwarding from China to the USA for transit times and rates.

Sources

Everything above was checked against primary sources on 4 August 2026: the USTR announcement of final action in the forced-labour Section 301 investigations (23 July 2026); the Federal Register notices of determination in those investigations; the Supreme Court opinion in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287 (20 February 2026); the Congressional Research Service analysis of that decision; and the two CBP interim final rules of 24 June 2026 suspending the de minimis exemption for postal and non-postal shipments.

Tariff policy is moving quickly. Before relying on any figure here for a shipment, check the date on this page - and on every other page you are reading.

Frequently asked questions

What is the tariff on goods from China right now?

There is no single figure, and any page that gives you one is guessing. The duty is built from your product's own 10-digit HTS code plus whichever additional layers apply: the Section 301 lists (25% on lists 1-3, 7.5% on list 4A), the forced-labour Section 301 duty of 12.5% that took effect on 24 July 2026, and Section 232 duties where the goods contain steel, aluminium or copper. Ranges give you the shape of it: a list 4A consumer good lands roughly in the low twenties once MFN and the forced-labour duty are added, while a list 1-3 industrial good clears 40%. The only number that matters is the one for your code.

Do I still get the $800 de minimis exemption?

No. It was suspended for all countries and all modes of transport on 29 August 2025, and on 24 June 2026 CBP moved that suspension from executive order into permanent regulation. Congress separately repealed the statutory exemption with effect from 1 July 2027. Every commercial shipment now requires a formal or informal entry, a 10-digit HTS classification and full payment of duties, whatever it is worth.

What happened to the IEEPA tariffs I paid?

On 20 February 2026 the Supreme Court held 6-3 that IEEPA does not authorise the President to impose tariffs, and that the tariffs imposed under it were invalid from inception. Refunds are being paid: the Court of International Trade ordered them, and CBP settles them electronically through a consolidated process rather than entry by entry - roughly $85 billion by late May 2026, with an accepted claim running 60 to 90 days. One group is still unresolved: entries already liquidated and past the 80-day window CBP can reprocess, which the government appealed on 2 June 2026. Start by pulling your entry summaries to establish what was actually paid under IEEPA; a customs attorney is worth it for the disputed group, not for a routine claim.

Is the 10% global surcharge still being charged?

No. The Section 122 surcharge took effect on 24 February 2026 and expired by operation of law on 24 July 2026, because Section 122 caps a balance-of-payments surcharge at 150 days unless Congress extends it, and Congress did not. The Court of International Trade had separately ruled against it; that appeal is still running and the treatment of amounts already collected is tied to it.

Who pays the duty, me or my supplier?

Whoever is the importer of record. Under DDP terms the seller or forwarder handles the entry and the duties, and the amount is built into the price you are quoted. Under DDU or DAP the goods stop at the port and you clear them through your own customs broker. Neither is automatically cheaper: what matters is that the duty appears somewhere in your landed cost before you commit, rather than as a surprise invoice afterwards.

How do I find the rate for my own product?

Start from the Harmonized Tariff Schedule published by the US International Trade Commission, which gives the base rate for your 10-digit code, then check which Section 301 list the code appears on and whether any Section 232 measure covers the material. If the classification is not obvious - and for many manufactured goods it is not - a licensed customs broker or a CBP binding ruling is the way to settle it, because getting the code wrong is your liability as importer, not your broker's.